Description

* AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST 2025* AN INDEPENDENT BEST BOOK OF 2025 * A GUARDIAN BOOK TO LOOK FORWARD TO *

‘An ambitious, stylishly delivered novel … Reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’ OBSERVER

‘Johal has written a major novel, and at his very first attempt … almost everything in Saraswati works beautifully’ TELEGRAPH, 5-STAR REVIEW

‘Saraswati is a major achievement, and Johal a huge talent. This should be one of the biggest novels of the year’ Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of In Ascension

Centuries ago, the myths say, the holy river Saraswati flowed through what is now Northern India. But when Satnam arrives in his ancestral village for his grandmother’s funeral, he is astonished to find water in the long-dry well behind her house. The discovery sets in motion a contentious scheme to unearth the lost river and build a gleaming new city on its banks, and Satnam – adrift from his job, girlfriend and flat back in London – soon finds himself swept up in this ferment of Hindu nationalist pride.

As the river alters Satnam’s course, so it reveals buried ties to six distant relatives scattered across the globe – from an ambitious writer with her eye on legacy to a Kenyan archaeologist to a Bollywood stunt double – who are brought together in a rapidly changing India. Brimming with love, lush, violence and loss, Gurnaik Johal’s magisterial debut deftly animates the passions that bind us to our histories, our lands and each other.

Publisher Review

A dizzyingly transcontinental ecological epic … Saraswati most certainly delivers, darting thrillerishly around the world to fold chewy themes of empire, populism and global warming into a cross-generational epic centred on seven strangers * Observer, ‘Best new novelists for 2025’ * A surging, roaring deluge of a novel, which ebbs and flows with a flood of wonderfully overlapping stories. I absolutely loved it — Jon McGregor, author of Reservoir 13 Saraswati is an extraordinary novel: gripping, funny, epic, elegant, and full of preternatural wisdom. Johal’s greatest strength is his ability to show the world as inexhaustibly fascinating, a vast and wondrous meshwork of interlocking stories. Saraswati is a major achievement, and Johal a huge talent. This should be one of the biggest novels of the year — Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of In Ascension A bold, intriguing tapestry of near-future tales: part absurdist political satire, part folkloric meditation, part ecological parable, this novel pulses with a frenetic energy that brings together a cast of beguiling characters — Aube Rey Lescure, Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of River East, River West Immersive, erudite, intimate and epic, a weaving of lives and stories, old and new, into something vast and very special. Saraswati sounds a note of hope, and a warning for our future — Preti Taneja, award-winning author of We That Are Young Capacious and brilliant. It has all the sweeping ambition of a great epic with the intimate genius of a master short story writer — Anna Metcalfe, Granta Best of Young British Novelists author of Chrysalis A fast-moving action novel that sweeps through many times, people, and places – it’s full of life. I loved the torrent of stories, and Johal’s sharp, insightful sense of humour — Daisy Hildyard, author of Emergency An ambitious panoramic portrait * Guardian * Praise for Gurnaik Johal * : * Virtuosic * Guardian * Exceptional * Financial Times * Johal has catapulted himself into the front rank — Rahul Raina